A Woman's Hand

You never know where the idea for a novel will come from. Sometimes, it comes in a brilliant flash of inspiration; more often than not, from long, deliberate meditation. Occasionally, however, a story will be borne out of personal experience.

Writing a novel based on things that really happened can be tricky in that life doesn’t always provide a convenient denouement, drawing all the loose strands of the plot together. Relationships usually fade without drama, without leaving that niggling feeling of What if? Real people seldom die, are killed, or commit suicide in a timely manner—plot devices which are overused in novels—and sadly, there are few happily-ever-afters in real life.

That said, something happened a few years ago that had me remembering a past life of sorts, a time when I was thirty and simultaneously dating a number of women. One of them would become my first wife, another would become the quintessential woman scorned, and a third would become the wretched casualty of my fickle heart. Fifteen years later that third woman would write to tell me that she would never ever, ever forgive me for what I did to her.

And so, I present a third novel based in Japan about the curious relationships that occur between an American man and Japanese women. Consider it an Act of Contrition. Unorthodox in structure, I hope this novella doesn’t feel like an Act of Contrition for the reader, too.

The very day Haruka left for America, Kei came over to your place and . . .

I remember it was raining buckets out, so we stayed inside and spent the day making love, dozing off in each other’s arms, waking up, doing it all over again . . .

Nothing like beating around the bush.

I think we both had a lot of pent-up desire.

And once that desire was “un-pent”?

Now that I look back on it, I suppose that it wouldn’t have been at all surprising if we had started to drift apart after that.

Why?

We’d had sex several times over the previous ten months, but it was always rushed, always surreptitious, never predictable. That rainy afternoon spent lolling about naked was a first for us. We had now brought the relationship to a new level, a risky level.

Risky?

After that afternoon, Kei and I became not only physically closer, but emotionally closer, too. Our hearts were now vulnerable to disappointment, betrayal, jealousy, you name it.